Mimesis, Tariq Ali/Iraq, Celtic Rats, SF Fandom and Internet Explorer
Hey, writers, editors, readers and other bookish people ... This is a great opportunity for you:
Inaugural Meeting for Mimesis Publishing Cooperative
This meeting is to establishing a Publishing Cooperative dedicated to scholarly works for discerning readers.
It is recommended that we adopt the government guaranteed model rules for a non-trading cooperative.
July 3, 3pm at Borderlands (Augustine Centre, 2 Minona Street Hawthorn - 5 minutes walk from Auburn Station)
The meeting is estimated to take less than 1 hour.
Please attend to indicate your interest in this project.
Last night I attended the Tariq Ali public meeting at the Melbourne Town Hall, which was filled to capacity. Ali's main points were as follows. (1) The so-called new soverign government is merely a puppet government for the occupying forces. (2) The intelligence of the Iraqi resistance and the speed at which it has been organized is unexpected and extraordinary. (3) The war requires massive support in the media of occupying countries (which, it should be added, hasn't been received). (4) The resistance will grow, the puppet government will become more repressive and the occupying forces will become more reliant. (5) The United Nations has become servile to the United States (see Security Council resolution 1546). (6) Noone who has experienced colonial oppression has been surprised by the torture photos or the results of the occupation. (7) The war is a demonstration of US imperial power - thus some other imperialist nations opposed it. And most importantly (8)The result of the war will determine international politics for the 21st century. After the meeting I managed to get Ali's signature on 1968 Marching in the Streets, a great dairy/photo journal of the international protests of that very eventful year.
Saturday evening was spent with a small cadre of science fiction fans for Tim Richards' fourtieth birthday gathering at the ScuBar, who provided food as only a science fiction fan can provide. There is one of the worst photos of me ever taken at the birthday pics site.
Saturday day was spent in Beveridge with![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smilesnspiders, and a small cadre of others including ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cold_echo, baralier, littlecountess, kerberos_3 and vampiiria. There were a dozen of us all told, and the afternoon was spent at the Kilmore Celtic festival which had bagpipes, young lasses dancing, various Celtic prints and other kitsch. I noted the typical lack of Breton influence among the anglophone Celts. Hmmph. Anyone would think that this - the largest collection of Celts in the world - didn't actually exist.
Apart from the Celtic festival we spent quite some time at smailesnspiders.caseopaya and I had to leave at very early in the morning - one train at 0700 and the next wasn't until 1330 - and were duly informed that our rats weren't supposed to be on the V/Line as they were considered livestock! Anyway, the conductor turned a blind eye on the dear beasties, and attended the rat weigh in - Monte at 490 grams, Mouse (yes, a rat called 'Mouse') at 565 grams and the fattest rat of them all, Harley at 570 grams - and he's lost weight!.
Sunday's presentation at Church was not a particularly good presentation on the current situation in Cuba (it had more to do with the history than the current situation). However, they managed to contribute to my march towards becoming Rev. Dr. tcpip continues. On August 1st I'm giving a presentation at the Melbourne Unitarian Church on "The Future of the Human Species" (artificial intelligence, genetic engineering etc) and on August 8th I'm conducting the service.
Brain breaker of the week is work-related and it's not funny. Fromreddragdiva. Stop using Internet Explorer. No, really. This is serious. And as part of a running history of IE security flaws it really is time you changed your brower.
This meeting is to establishing a Publishing Cooperative dedicated to scholarly works for discerning readers.
It is recommended that we adopt the government guaranteed model rules for a non-trading cooperative.
July 3, 3pm at Borderlands (Augustine Centre, 2 Minona Street Hawthorn - 5 minutes walk from Auburn Station)
The meeting is estimated to take less than 1 hour.
Please attend to indicate your interest in this project.
Last night I attended the Tariq Ali public meeting at the Melbourne Town Hall, which was filled to capacity. Ali's main points were as follows. (1) The so-called new soverign government is merely a puppet government for the occupying forces. (2) The intelligence of the Iraqi resistance and the speed at which it has been organized is unexpected and extraordinary. (3) The war requires massive support in the media of occupying countries (which, it should be added, hasn't been received). (4) The resistance will grow, the puppet government will become more repressive and the occupying forces will become more reliant. (5) The United Nations has become servile to the United States (see Security Council resolution 1546). (6) Noone who has experienced colonial oppression has been surprised by the torture photos or the results of the occupation. (7) The war is a demonstration of US imperial power - thus some other imperialist nations opposed it. And most importantly (8)The result of the war will determine international politics for the 21st century. After the meeting I managed to get Ali's signature on 1968 Marching in the Streets, a great dairy/photo journal of the international protests of that very eventful year.
Saturday evening was spent with a small cadre of science fiction fans for Tim Richards' fourtieth birthday gathering at the ScuBar, who provided food as only a science fiction fan can provide. There is one of the worst photos of me ever taken at the birthday pics site.
Saturday day was spent in Beveridge with
smilesnspiders, and a small cadre of others including cold_echo, baralier, littlecountess, kerberos_3 and vampiiria. There were a dozen of us all told, and the afternoon was spent at the Kilmore Celtic festival which had bagpipes, young lasses dancing, various Celtic prints and other kitsch. I noted the typical lack of Breton influence among the anglophone Celts. Hmmph. Anyone would think that this - the largest collection of Celts in the world - didn't actually exist.Apart from the Celtic festival we spent quite some time at smailesnspiders.
caseopaya and I had to leave at very early in the morning - one train at 0700 and the next wasn't until 1330 - and were duly informed that our rats weren't supposed to be on the V/Line as they were considered livestock! Anyway, the conductor turned a blind eye on the dear beasties, and attended the rat weigh in - Monte at 490 grams, Mouse (yes, a rat called 'Mouse') at 565 grams and the fattest rat of them all, Harley at 570 grams - and he's lost weight!.Sunday's presentation at Church was not a particularly good presentation on the current situation in Cuba (it had more to do with the history than the current situation). However, they managed to contribute to my march towards becoming Rev. Dr. tcpip continues. On August 1st I'm giving a presentation at the Melbourne Unitarian Church on "The Future of the Human Species" (artificial intelligence, genetic engineering etc) and on August 8th I'm conducting the service.
Brain breaker of the week is work-related and it's not funny. From
reddragdiva. Stop using Internet Explorer. No, really. This is serious. And as part of a running history of IE security flaws it really is time you changed your brower.
Responses
(2) I didn't claim that the occupation had remained popular, merely that they were more popular than the insurgents. It is precisely because the insurgents lack popular support that they are attempting to sabotage the process.
(3) Not all the insurgency is foreign, just much of it.
(4) The question was whether the UN was being 'servile' to the US. Given they denied the US the authorisation it put a lot of effort into getting, clearly not.
(5) If Abu Ghraib was worse under Saddam, which it was, and if prison abuses occur in all sorts of context, which they do, then it is not one particular form.
(6) Vietnam was not an NLF victory, it was a North Vietnamese victory. It resulted in the Khmer Rouge megacide, millions of refugees and the imposition of series of corrupt tyrannies which are now attempting to create the sort of economies that millions tied in the attempt to not have.
The refugees themselves express what the outcome was.
As for Nicaragua, while one can't endorse the whole package, the Sandinistas were put under sufficient pressure as to allow a free vote. Which, like Pinochet, they abided by.
Re: Responses
1) Come now, it is difficult to suggest that this is not a puppet regime. The government has no control over the action or presence of the US military. The US maintains an overseeer role over the Iraqi security forces. Ultimate control over the oil resources remains with the US and other companies under contract.
This is what sovereignity is supposed to mean:
Sovereignty (Webster)1 . Supremacy in rule or power. 2 . Power to govern without external control 3 . The supreme political power in a state.
None of this is the case in Iraq - but it was in West Germany.
2) I take your point, but one comment which Ali made was that an organization that large and that coordinated could not operate without substantial popular support - there would be information leaks everywhere.
4) Most recently the UN security council resolution notes that the US presence in Iraq can only be terminated by a vote of the Security Council. Where the Bush Administration can control the outcome with its veto power.
5) Apart from initiating an illegal war, we have no witnessed in recent weeks the killing of civilians (Falluja), torture (Abu Ghraib) and the bombing the wedding party (Maghar al Deeb).
It will be interesting to see what Amnesty International has to say in this years report compared to the final year of Saddam's rule.
6) Following the 1969 US bombing of Cambodia, which killed thousands of civilians and the 1970 invasion by the US and South Vietnam, Cambodia was dragged into the Vietnam war. The US-backed General Lon Nol deposed Prince Sihanouk, when then threw his weight behind the Khmer Rogue, which had hitherto been an utterly insignificant force.
This resulted in Khmer Rogue gaining strategtic and political ascendency, eventually resulting with Phnom Penh falling to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. Following numerous border incursions and the intolerable human rights abuses the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1978. The United States (and in particular the PRC) gave continious support for the Pol Pot regime (even when it was deposed) in the international arena.
The United States is entirely responsible for the creation and success of the Pol Pot regime. The Vietnamese are solely responsible for it being overthrown.